VARIED EXPERIENCES

Bruno Lernout was born in 1957 in Duffel (Belgium). He is the third of eight children (he has three brothers and four sisters). He got a Catholic upbringing, but turned his back to religion when he was only 13 years old, because he disliked the hypocrisy of the church and did not understand why so many people got killed in the name of God.

He studied Landscape Gardening. He planned to do his internship in Lubeck (Germany), but did not pass the exams. Instead of moving north, he travelled south. While preparing for his second exams, a friend suggested to do the wine harvest in southern France, and he promised to accompany him in case he did not pass.

They hitchhiked and found work in Gignac, near Montpellier. Afterwards they did a second wine harvest in St. Emilion-Puisseguin, near Bordeaux. Then they went to see some acquaintances in the Pyrenees. When his friend suggested to go home, Bruno pointed to the blue sky and suggested to follow the sun. They hichhiked to Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Toledo, Granada, and then to Morocco.

In Marbella he met a girl and promised her to see her again after his trip to Morocco. He does, but runs out of money a few days later and has to return to Belgium. This time he promises his girlfriend to look immediately for a job and to save enough money in order to return to Marbella as soon as possible.

Back in Marbella a few months later, he learns that he needs a permit to work in Spain. He does not know how to get one. This is quite frustrating, because he knows 5 languages and lives in a tourist town where there is a demand for people who speak several languages.

Since he can’t work, he hangs out with young people who are on vacation or who are on their way to Morocco and who experiment with drugs. Because of this he doesn’t react in the best way when he and his girlfriend face a problem. They separate, but he stays in Marbella. He finally finds work for a Belgian tour operator and gets a work permit. First he goes to Mallorco, then to Tenerife, and two years later to Marbella.

During the ten years that he lives there (1981-1990), he meets people from many different countries. In this tourist town, which is a favourite resort for the rich, every night is Saturday night. People drink a lot and drugs are easily available. When he realizes that he is damaging his health, he stays away from alcohol for a several months.

At first he works as a guide for a touroperator. Later he creates a publicity leaflet and he also starts a paper shop specialized in greetingcards, posters, stationery, etc. Since he is self-employed, he gets a residence permit. However, the store does not work and he has to close it. Getting a work permit is still difficult when you are not self-employed and since he  owes a friend money he returns to Belgium for a few months.

He had dreamed to become rich before he turned 40, but now he has to work as a dishwasher, a gardener and an unskilled worker. And to get a job he has to compete with immigrants from North Africa and Eastern Europe. This is a difficult time for him, but offers him a more realistic view on society. In order to get a better job he learns different office skills (typewriting / computer programs).

When he returns to Spain he chooses Madrid. He has gotten fed up with the artificial life of holiday resorts and now wants to become familiar with the real Spain.

Although Spain now forms part of the European community, he still has problems finding a legal job. He answers an advertisement and gets invited for an interview. A week later he begins to work at a small advertising company, but without a contract. Twice a year this company organizes an Award Celebration dedicated to Excellence in Corporate Image. During these conventions he has to wear an expensive suit and tie and to his surprise he discovers that people now treat him with respect.

This job also teaches him that people often do not read what a text really says, but only what they think it says, and that it is therefore easy to creates false expectations and deceive people without having to lie. Although most recipients of the awards are happy with their trophy, for which they have paid good money, occasionally a company feels cheated and he feels terrible. Therefore, when years later he is offered a percentage of the benefits, he decides to leave the company. He considers that this would make him directly responsible for what that company does.

The decision to quitte that job is also the result of a crisis – he is almost 40 - which originally started by a physical ailment: a pain in the knee. After seeing several traditional doctors, who did not manage to help him, he consulted a holistic healer. This man told him about the union of mind and body and said he could solve the problem with his knee in a short time, but that the real problem was a mental block.

The holistic treatment he is given, which includes among others the trace element 'gold', helps him to remember events that happened during your childhood. He soon begins to give more importance to his subconscious – many years ago he had quit smoking because of a dream and he had had several other interesting dreams – and gets interested in the past and why things happen the way they do. Eventually he starts questionning everything he has ever learned. Since new scientific theories often contradict previous theories, he realizes that a lot of ideas may be false. This makes him decide to try to discover his own truths.

When one doubts everything, nothing is clear, which makes that everything is again possible. Therefore, he not only wonders whether the ideas of science are true, but also whether religions, legends and myths are based on reality.

When his subconscious tells him to become a vegetarian, he wonders where it got that idea from. He discovers that it has to do with what he was taught about paradise when he was a child. He suddenly remembers that the first time he heard that story he had come to the conclusion that since Adam and Eve were friends with the animals before the expulsion from paradise, to be re-admitted into paradise, the obious thing to do would be to become again friends with the animals and, therefore, to stop eating them. He remembers  to have been very proud to have found the solution to this problem, but a bit later he had assumed to be mistaken, since he considered that adults know everything better, and they gave him animals to eat.

When he realized where the idea to become a vegetarian came fom, he consulted a Bible and looked up what it exactly says about vegetarianism. It surprised him that he had once associated this book with vegetarianism but later learned to associate this diet with Eastern religions.

Reading Genesis, the first book of the Bible, he learned that in the beginning God had recommended Adam and Eve to eat vegetables and that only many generations later, after the Flood, God gave Noah and his family permission to eat other creatures.

His work for that Communication Company that offered awards to Excellence in Corporate Image enabled him to read this book with a critical mind. He thus realized that there is something not quite right with that second dietary law. When he asked why God changed His mind, he discovered that these texts guard a secret and that God, the main protagonist of this book, is not a capricious being, but based on the principle cause and effect.

Whereas a lot of people consider that Genesis is full of myths, he realized that it is the origin of the three monotheistic religions, and that asking why we have problems with the other people and with our environment is the same as asking what the forbidden fruit refers to.

He now has a good reason for studying this book, since by reflecting upon the evolution of humanity he has come to the conclusion that a society that does not live in harmony - like ours - is bound to destroy itself. The evolution of technology not only makes weapons continually become more sophisticated - and nowadays enables mankind to destroy itself -, but also enables an increasingly smaller percentage of the world population to appropiate an increasingly larger percentage of all resources, thus increasing the tension between the different groups of people and between them and their environment.

After discovering these secrets in the Bible he decides to write a book, but each time he finishes one version he is not satisfied and changes its structure and focus. This process allows him to discover more secrets in the Bible and to obtain a better understanding of it. Soon he is not only interested in what this book says, but also wants to discover why others interpret it erroneously.

Having discovered at the origin of the Bible an idea (vegetarianism) which is considered typical for certain Eastern religions - makes him wonder whether perhaps all philosophies and religions have safeguarded important ideas for the future. This makes him see that to understand the Bible one may have to be familiar with ideas such as reincarnation and karma.

Since it takes him such a long time to write his book, and he eventually runs out of money, he starts working as a guide for walking holidays. For years he had gone hiking on Sundays and one of his new Friends, who organized tours for foreigners, needed someone to help him. He loves the job, because he likes nature – he started going to the mountains to recharge energy - and the people on these tours, mostly Americans, are very interesting. A lot of them have gone to universities like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton and some are very rich.

Thanks to this job he becomes aware of his prejudices about Americans and about the rich. He learns a lot from them. He learns, for instance, to  be grateful when you are happy with a service. During these tours he often gets the chance to discuss his ideas. Since people do not always agree with him, he learn to broaden his views and to improve his arguments. Some know the Bible well - many customers are Jewish – and he learns a lot from them.

Besides working as a guide he also occasionally works for the courts as an intepreter. At one job he deals with privileged people, at  the other with marginal people (drug dealers, thieves, etc.). These contacts are short but affect him a lot since he imagines himself in the place of these criminals.

At first he only works as a guide in Spain, but with the season being so short - from early April to late October - and it being too hot to walk during the summer, he starts guiding during these months Silk Road expeditions with groups of Spaniards. Thanks to this he becomes interested in the culture, history and religion of these people.

Around the same time he becomes interested in the camino de Santiago. In 2003, the year of the 'Prestige', he walks from Roncesvalles to Santiago, and then to Finisterre and Muxía. He enjoys walking for a long in the same direction and watch the landscape and people change gradually. When he arrives at the end, he realizes that for having walked so many kilometers each day, and meeting almost every night different people he has not had a good interaction with his fellow pilgrims. Therefore, he repeats this experience the following year. This time he starts at Somport on February 27 and with more than half a meter of snow. A few weeks later he has befriended several pilgrims and every night he meets up with them. Just before reaching Galicia he has a revelatory dream thanks to the interaction with these people. He realizes immediately that this has nothing to do with magic, but with how his subconscious works. Now that he knows why he had certain nightmares he can do something about it to avoid having them again.

He starts working on the camino de Santiago because he likes the contact with pilgrims that also ask many questions. Some years later he moves to the camino de Santiago. He chooses Arzúa, 40km from Santiago, and begins a shop that offers food for pilgrims and food for thought for spiritual pilgrim. His aim is to contact the spiritual pilgrims - on top of the shelves are messages that form a philosophical journey - but without disturbing other pilgrims. In six months he gets customers from over 65 different countries and meets several pilgrims who are very interested in his ideas. But he has to close down because he looses money. He does not care too much since he has discovered better ways to divulge his ideas. The following year he begins exhibting his messages on the camino to Santiago.

Heidi, who lives in Tabernavella, offers coffee and cake to pilgrims – the best zuccini and walnut cake of the whole camino - and lets him exhibit his philosophy. His messages encourage pilgrims to quetion themselves as much as they question other people. He talks about philosophy with those who are interested and offers tourist information to those that aren’t. Since he has lived in different places in Spain, and has met people from many different countries and worked in several fields, he easily finds something to talk about with pilgrims to make them feel as ease.